Raspberries and 'Apples For Jam'

Roses are Red

and Raspberries are too,

Did you know that they

belong to the same family?

Well they do!

Sorry for the rhyming, just something I wanted to share with you all. I guess that explains why every time I smell a rose it makes me think of raspberries. And don't worry...I am not thinking of becoming a poet!

So you may have figured out by now this post is about raspberries! In particular, the raspberries we picked from Rob and Sally's garden. They were amazingly sweet and juicy and picked at their prime! Cant ask for more than that!

I thought this would also be a good time to tell you about a new cookbook I bought since one of the recipes will be taken from it. Cookbooks to me are like novels or memoirs. One of my favorite things to do is to sit down with a comfy blanket and a good cookbook and read it straight through cover to cover. Well this cookbook is one that you can do that with. It is filled with childhood memories and beautiful pictures and wonderful drawings made by the authors children. Its a cookbook I had to have. And I have to tell you it was love at first sight! The cover had me at hello! I bought the cookbook for the cover alone! Actually, I should say, Cyn and I were just browsing at Borders on a kid free night and she must have seen me longing for it because when we got out to the truck to leave it was sitting on the front seat. I know, pretty nice-huh?

Anyway, its called Apples for Jam by Tessa Kiros. The recipes are very kid friendly and not to complicated. The chapters are arranged by colors, I love that. All the red foods are together, the browns, the greens, and so forth. Towards the end of the book there are chapters called monochrome and Multicolor.

The recipe I chose to make is from the chapter called Stripes. It is Raspberry Ripple Ice Cream. The best part about it is you don't need an ice cream maker to make it. I also made Vanilla Shortbread from Nigella Lawsons Forever Summer cookbook. The two together were awesome. Can you say Vanilla shortbread Raspberry Ripple ice cream sandwiches?

Raspberry Ripple Ice Cream
from Apples for Jam by Tessa Kiros

Ice cream
1 Cup milk
3 eggs
1/2 cup superfine sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups heavy whipping cream

Raspberry Puree
3 T. superfine sugar
Juice of half a lemon
1/2 cup water
2 cups raspberries

For the ice cream, heat the milk gently in a saucepan. Whisk the eggs, sugar, and vanilla extract together in a bowl until they are smooth and creamy. Just before the milk comes to a boil, remove it from the heat, and whisk a ladleful into the eggs to acclimatize them. Whisk in another ladleful and then pour the eggs and milk back into the saucepan. Turn down the heat to its lowest , and cook for a minute or so, whisking all the time, just to cook the eggs through. Remove from the heat, whisk in the cream, and pour into a bowl that has a lid. Leave to cool completely, whisking now and then while it cools.

Put the lid on the bowl and put it in the freezer. After an hour, remove the bowl from the freezer and give the mix an energetic whisk with a hand whisk or an electric mixer and then put it back in the freezer. Whisk again after another couple of hours. Put it back in the freezer until it is nearly firm.

Meanwhile, make the raspberry puree. Put the sugar, lemon juice, and 1/2 cup of water in a small saucepan, and bring to a boil. Simmer over low hear, for about 5 minutes until it has reduced a bit. Take it off the heat, add the raspberries, and then puree until smooth. Strain the puree through a fine sieve to catch all the seeds. Cool completely.

Swirl the puree through the ice cream with a spoon. Make a few more swirls, folds and pirouettes, but no so many that the puree starts to blend in with the ice cream. Cover the bowl again and return to the freezer to set completely.

Alternatively, pour the ice cream mixture into an ice cream machine and churn following the manufacturer's instructions. When it is ready, transfer to a freezer container, and then add the raspberry puree and make your swirls.

Take out of the freezer a few minutes before serving so that it is not rock hard.

Makes 6 cups


Vanilla Shortbread
From Forever Summer by Nigella Lawson

2/3 cup confectioners' sugar
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, preferably Italian 00
2/3 cup cornstarch
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons very soft unsalted butter
seeds from 1 vanilla bean
vanilla or ordinary granulated sugar for sprinkling

Preheat the oven to 325 F

Put the confectioners' sugar, flour and cornstarch into the bowl of a food processor* fitted with the metal blade and give them a quick blitz (just to save you sifting, which is my most-hated job in the kitchen) before adding the butter along with the vanilla seeds you've scraped out of a bean. (I find the easiest way to do this is by cutting the bean in half across, and then splitting each short half lengthwise and prising out the seeds with the point and edge of a sharp knife. Don't even think of throwing the seeded bits of bean away: stash them in a jar of granulated sugar to use next time a recipe requires vanilla sugar.)

Process again until the soft mixture coheres and begins to form a ball, loosely clumping around the blade. Turn this out onto a jelly roll pan** and press to form an even (or as even as you can make it) layer, using fingers or the back of a spoon, or both. Be patient: I promise you it will fit smoothly.

Using the tip of a sharp knife cut the pressed-out shortbread into fingers. I make two incisions lengthwise - i.e. to form three rows- and then make ten cuts down 0 so that you end up with eleven fingers per row. Obviously, the aim should be to cut at regular intervals, but don't start getting your ruler out. Just go by eye: uniformity is the province of the conveyor belt not of home cooking. Use the tines of a fork to make little holes in each marked-out biscuit: I press down about tree times, diagonally, on each finger.

Now that you've pressed, incised, and punctured, slide the jelly roll pan into the oven an bake for about 20 - 25 minutes, by which time the shortbread will be pale still, but not doughy. Expect a little goldenness around the edges, but shortbread should be not crisp but melting. Remove the pan from the oven and let cool for 10 minutes or so, before removing, with a palette knife and your fingers, to a wire rack. Sprinkle with sugar and leave them to cool completely before storing in a tightly lidded tin.


Makes 33 fingers.


*I don't own a food processor so I just blended everything with a pastry blender.

**I used a 13x9" pan.